Further cuts to health care in Arizona could result in higher insurance premiums for everyone in the state, according to a study commissioned by the Arizona Chamber Foundation.
The study by the Virginia-based Lewin Group found that private insurers in Arizona pay 40 percent above the costs of treating patients in order to cover shortfalls left by Medicare and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program.
That shortfall was $1.3 billion in 2007, the study said, and was passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. Underpayments resulted in increases of 8.8 percent to insured Arizonans, the study reported, or $361 per insured person. The study was released on a day that lawmakers approved legislation that restored $16.5 million in funding for rural hospitals, graduate medical education and hospitals serving large numbers of uninsured patients.
But with the state facing a $3 billion deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1, hospital officials worry AHCCCS funding could again be on the chopping block.
"Cuts to funding of public-health programs like AHCCCS and Medicare have a direct connection to the cost of health-insurance premiums," said Mary Semma, vice president at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. "With this new Lewin Group report, we now have the facts to back that up."
Reginald M. Ballantyne III, senior corporate officer at Vanguard Health Systems, said cuts to AHCCCS would threaten hospitals across the state.
"Hospitals are economic engines," said Ballantyne, a former chairman of the American Hospital Association. "To further cut back on such an important portion of our economy I believe would be counterproductive."
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